Sebastian Stan is one of the most in-demand and most-respected actors in Hollywood. It certainly wasn’t always that way — not before Marvel came calling.

Stan told Vanity Fair he was “struggling with work” before being cast as Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier for 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger.

“I had just gotten off the phone with my business manager, who told me I was saved by $65,000 that came in residuals from Hot Tub Time Machine,” Stan recalled.

Thank goodness for the role of Blaine the ski-patrol bully. (Stan had also done 11 episodes of Gossip Girl by then.)

Hot Tub Time Machine starred John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson and Clark Duke as a group of guys who accidentally time-travel back to 1986 using a hot tub and must find a way to return to 2010. The supporting cast included Crispin Glover, Lizzy Caplan and Chevy Chase; Glover of Back to the Future fame,...